When are you going to fall in?

Guess no one will tell you.
At least the lucky angler on P4 last Saturday wasn’t told before he left the resort to fish.

It was fairly early in the late morning when an angler stopped back into the bait shop with his fishing day ending early. He was in good spirits considering…

It was fairly crowded by the dam and boat A was under the power of his electric trolling motor when his steering went out. Unfortunately for boat B they were on a colision course and close together.

The angler in boat B reached out to at least slow the impact of the collision. Not real sure on the specifics but the angler in boat B ended up in the river’s 53 degree waters.

There were a few things working for angler B that day.
* Lots of boats around to help if needed
* He was fishing with a partner
* It was fairly warm and he wasn’t bulked up with heavy clothing causing him to sink rapidly.
* His Co Angler liked him enough to fish him out of the water.

Who would have thought that just putting around a person could fall in?
This indecent didn’t make the statistic page luckily, but it does show it can happen without a moments notice.

“I always wear my PFD when moving with the big motor”. I hear a lot.
I will bet there are more falls in and drownings when using an electric or even anchored then there are when going faster.

With the comfortable light weight Type V’s on the market today, I can’t think of any reason not to wear a PFD 99% of the time.

Until someone will tell us we are going in ahead of time, it just might save your family the grief of you know what.

If I recall correctly there is a 1:10:1 rule for cold water:
1 minute to control your breathing.
10 minutes of useful energy.
1 hour of survival.

Basically, if you don’t get what you need done in 10 minutes you’re toast if there’s nobody there to help you. I know a lot of guys fish the night bite on the Miss this time of year. Wearing a PDF at all times would be a wise choice.

I swam in that 52 degree water friday.

I agree and over the past couple seasons have been really mindful of always wearing the life jacket in the boat and encouraging others to do so as well. There is just way too much that can happen too fast on the river (or a lake).

I guess 2 dudes went in at Evert’s this weekend.

My buddy flipped out of his duck hunting kayak near Evert’s Sunday morning. It was really shallow and it wasn’t a complete submersion, but his auto PFD didn’t inflate. Not immediately anyway. It went off 8 hours later sitting on the passenger seat of his truck while he was driving home. Scared the chit out of him.

LOL! Chamber, if the vest didn’t submerge completely, it likely wouldn’t go off.

I’ve tested (well ColieCrawler tested one) all of the two sets of 3 Float-Techs I’ve use and the water needs to get under the flap before it will inflate. Less then five seconds…poof!

If water just gets splashed in that area, I can see why it would not inflate. Depending on if it was just a little wet, it would go off sometime later.

chamberschamps wrote:

I guess 2 dudes went in at Evert’s this weekend.

My buddy flipped out of his duck hunting kayak near Evert’s Sunday morning. It was really shallow and it wasn’t a complete submersion, but his auto PFD didn’t inflate. Not immediately anyway. It went off 8 hours later sitting on the passenger seat of his truck while he was driving home. Scared the chit out of him.

That’s funny!
My inflatable PDFs used to randomly go off in my boat while stowed-so much that I went back to using a regular garden variety PDF. Always figured I was doing something wrong(technically challenged), but dang the recharges got expensive!

Good post-Just wear ’em, especially in the cold waters; stuff just happens too fast.

Storing an inflatable in a compartment of your boat will give the owner a bit of a “surprise”. On hot days if there’s any water in your hull it will evaporate as start to dissolve the “pill”.

More so if the boat is covered.

Type V’s should be hung up indoors when not in use then change the “pill” each year. The pills are less expensive then the pills and the Co2 cartridge. I’ve heard of a few Float Techs inflating when they shouldn’t have. At some point the pill had to have seen water or high humidity for them to discharge.

Twice a year I use an air compressor to fill them up. Then leave them sit over night to see if there’s any leaks.

I feel the comfort is worth the extra time needed to ensure they are working properly. But that’s me.

It is always interesting when you have to face reality. This past summer I happened to be staying in a hotel and swimming with my kids. I decided that I would go to the deep end and swim around. Just for giggles I tried to see how long I could tread water. The answer was….not very long! I’m a young and fairly fit person by today’s standards. My advice to anyone who thinks they don’t need a PFD….go tread water for a while and see how long you last. I can’t imagine how hard it would be fully clothed in cold water.

Used to play puck with some ER docs down here in Rochester. After one sorry angler lost his life on lake zumbro we started talking about this in the locker room. All the ER docs had this one saying about entering cold water. They called it the 50:50 rule which meant: There’s only a 50/50 chance you can swim 50 feet in 50 degree F water. That my folks is some pretty poor stats. Most of the time they were filling out the death certificate. Wear your PFD’s if you want a chance.

Good reminder, BK. It’s that time of year.

I wear my Mustang anytime I am in the boat or on early/late ice. I have friends that give me grief all the time about wearing it. Heck I forget an usually wear it home. These modern inflatables are so comfortable there is no excuse to take it off. I never want to have to make the phone call to a buddies loved one explaining they didn’t have the vest on but I did.

Mwal

The angler in boat B who’s day was cut short was the reminder.

Great post! Thank you for reminding me to be careful. Seriously. I think these posts will end up saving a life at some point. Fishing with a partner is also highly recommended.

I had someone in the boat friday night 10pm-6am who wore an inflatable….Then i though about it, so i was I…My striker suit.

As I’ve said before, it doesn’t matter to me what brand PFD a person has…as long as your wearing it.

A person never knows when they will have to swim to their boat.

Glad I stored the boat today!

flanders51 wrote:

Great post! Thank you for reminding me to be careful. Seriously. I think these posts will end up saving a life at some point. Fishing with a partner is also highly recommended.

+1 on this end.

Light beer floats, I wonder how much one has to consume in order to become a flotation device in of themselves?

Brian how do you fill the co2 with air from a compresser.I did not think you could refill ones that had gone off.

Twice a year I use an air compressor to fill them up. Then leave them sit over night to see if there’s any leaks.

I feel the comfort is worth the extra time needed to ensure they are working properly. But that’s me.

Sorry about the miscommunication.

I use an air tank so I can control the amount of air to ensure I don’t over inflate the air bladder in the vest. Then leave the vests over night to see if there’s a slow leak. Haven’t had one yet. (knock on wood)

No refilling of Co2 cartridges.

When storing them for the winter, I’ll take out the Co2 cartridge and store it in one of the cartridge pockets on the vest. This way the cartridge won’t discharge if the “pill” goes bad over winter.

There’s a red/stop, green/go indicator to insure the vest is armed and ready to go at a glance.

Brian Klawitter wrote:

LOL! Chamber, if the vest didn’t submerge completely, it likely wouldn’t go off.

I’ve tested (well ColieCrawler tested one) all of the two sets of 3 Float-Techs I’ve use and the water needs to get under the flap before it will inflate. Less then five seconds…poof!

If water just gets splashed in that area, I can see why it would not inflate. Depending on if it was just a little wet, it would go off sometime later.

Try buying a regular vest that floats all the time. You can get some pretty small nice fitting life jackets these days that don’t bulk you down like your in a straight jacket and you don’t have to be concerned about them inflating.

^^ Pretty inexpensive too!

I went in watching for submerged deadheads back tracking a tight channel we already went through. I was even bracing myself, but didn’t expect it to kick sideways if we hit something. By the way we were going 2mph or less. No PDF. I was very fortunate not to hit bottom hard or get tangled in a snag. Kind of makes me sick to recall it.

I would have been soo PO’ed at you had you drown.

But you are always calling me your chum?

I told you never to say that in public! You have a reputation to keep ya know….

Did you ever get your sunglasses back? What else did you lose that night besides your dignity?

Hat and sun glasses. Possibly some urine and poopy as well.

I thought I’d chime in on this one since I happen to be the “swimmer” from boat B:)……

You’re correct BK. If someone would have told me I’d be swimming on Saturday, I wouldn’t have believe it, but somehow it did happen. It was a good reminder to always keep your safety in mind, but in this case in all honesty, other than the freak show of sporting 3 adam’s apples for a few hours, it really wasn’t a big deal. I’m certainly not advocating unsafe acts here, but in the event someone else should take a dip under similar circumstances I thought I’d share my experience so others might know what to expect. First off, I’ll say that I was very surprised at how uneventful this was for me personally. I’m sure it could be a very different situation if one were to panic, but I was not stressed at all. There was no feeling of sheer terror, no forces sucking the air out of my lungs, etc. I simply fell into water that felt pretty damn cold. Here’s how it went down.

We were pulling down stream dragging jigs and noticed a boat coming right at us. I watched the person in the bow of that boat physically turn the head of the bow mount 90 degrees to the left. At that point, I thought we were all good and went to studying my rods and the electronics again. The next time I looked up again, I was surprised when this boat was still coming right at us. Again, the guy in the bow moved the power head straight left, but the boat didn’t respond. He said “trolling motor is broke and won’t steer”. At this point, we’re really close and I really wanted to avoid a bunch of glass rash on my boat, so I was very keen to push them off when they got close enough. At the same time I pushed on their bow, the other guy pushed on ours, and he must have had Wheaties for breakfast that day, ’cause he pushed off a lot harder than me. I quickly found myself with half my weight on my arms on their bow, and the other half on my feet on the bow deck of my boat. The whole human bridge thing was working awesome…….for like a half second…..! I realized that there was no way I was making it back in my boat, so I decided to make a lunge for their bow. Besides; they looked like a lot better fisherman than my partner, so I figured I didn’t have anything to loose……other than being on a boat with a broke A$$ trolling motor:). Despite my best effort to complete a Fosbury flop onto their front deck, all my 270 lb physique could muster was a tentative hold on their gunnel with my waist down dragging in the river. They tried pulling me in their boat by my shoulders, but I declined and said I’d just swim to the back of my boat. They didn’t seem too confident in this plan, but honestly, it was no big deal at all. It was a very short distance and I covered it quickly. I pulled the pin on the emergency ladder and climbed aboard under my own power. Was I wet?…yup. Was I cold? Not at this point too much, but that would kick in later since I couldn’t find anyone to loan me some size 15’s to keep my feet warm:). Where are all my fellow Hobbit’s when I need them?……

Anyway…….moral of the story is be safe, but if you do find yourself in the water unexpectedly, don’t panic. You likely have more time than you think to get back in the boat.

Thanks for jumping in here!

It’s good to get the story first hand.

There are a few other conditions that would make your dip a little more unpleasant like current and water below 50. But when you came into the bait shop you were calm and collected. Didn’t even seem to mind your trip being cut short!

The best part of your post?

Anyway…….moral of the story is be safe, but if you do find yourself in the water unexpectedly, don’t panic.

Popular day for playing in the water. I had to walk my buddies boat across the entire width of the bay city flat to the landing. Put in at back channel but never would have made it back . Brand new trolling motor poop the bed and he claimed to have a third a tank of gas in the motor that didn’t happen either. Always good when your skin is red from your waste down and the upper half is sweating. He walked it too to much cross wind to ore it back.